Wadhal Turns a Former Garage Plot in Ruislip into a 70 m² House That Borrows the Suburban Semi's Vocabulary

Two garages once stood on this plot in Ruislip, West London. Now there is Wade House, a two-bedroom home of 70 square metres by Wadhal, completed in 2025. Small infill houses on leftover brownfield land are becoming one of the more honest answers to London's housing shortage. Most are either apologetic boxes or loud contrarian objects. This one does neither.

What interests us is how closely Wadhal reads the street. The bay window, the hipped roof, the brick plinth and the rendered upper storey all come from the semi-detached houses next door, but each element has been redrawn rather than copied. Inside, plywood joinery, red tile floors and exposed rafters turn a very small floor area into a sequence of rooms that feel deliberate. The house argues that suburban typology is still a usable language, provided you are willing to edit it.

A Familiar Silhouette, Carefully Edited

Seen from the pavement, Wade House reads as a member of the family. The pebbledash semis beside it share the same basic anatomy: a solid ground floor, a bay that pushes toward the street, and a pitched roof that closes the composition. Wadhal keeps that anatomy and changes the materials. White render replaces pebbledash, timber cladding fills the gable, and a patterned red brick base anchors the whole thing to the ground.

The result is a house that sits comfortably in context without pretending to be old. You notice it, but you do not have to defend it, and that is a hard balance to strike on a residential street where planning conversations tend to turn on matters of character.

Brick as Threshold

The brick does more than sit beneath the render. It wraps the street edge as a wall, holds a slatted metal gate, and frames a timber front door with a patterned glass panel and a perforated canopy. The textured bond gives the base a tactile quality at hand height, exactly where people encounter it.

This is where a former garage site makes itself felt. The house meets the street with a defensive, solid edge, then softens into timber and glass at the points of entry. It is a sensible way to handle privacy on a tight plot without resorting to blank walls.

A Kitchen Built Like Furniture

Downstairs, the kitchen is a plywood block containing the oven and sink, set beside the timber stair on a red tile floor. A wheeled island with a stone top can move as needed. In 70 square metres, a fixed island would eat circulation, so making it mobile is a practical decision rather than a stylistic one.

The red floor extends the brick of the exterior indoors, so the ground storey feels like one continuous material base. Doors open from plywood-lined rooms into brighter spaces with pale timber floors, and the change of surface marks the change of use without any need for walls.

The Bay Window, Turned Inward

In a typical semi, the bay window is a bulge in the front room that usually ends up holding a sofa. Here it becomes a room in its own right. On the ground floor it holds a round table beside the kitchen joinery; upstairs it forms a curved alcove beneath exposed rafters, with sheer curtains filtering the light.

This is the most persuasive move in the house. Wadhal takes the most recognisable element of the suburban street and gives it a specific domestic job. The curved glazing makes a small nook feel generous, and the curtains keep it usable on a street-facing elevation.

Living Under the Rafters

The first floor sits within the hipped roof, and the architects have left the timber structure exposed. Rafters run overhead, plywood lines the walls of the stairwell, and roof windows pour light down the stair. The pitched ceilings compress and release the rooms, which gives a small upper floor more spatial variety than a flat ceiling would allow.

The red brick reappears on the landing, a reminder that the material language holds across both floors. Nothing here is precious; the timber is structural and visible, and that frankness suits the scale.

Small Rooms That Work Hard

Storage is where compact houses succeed or fail, and Wade House treats it as architecture. A plywood bench and tall cupboard sit on the landing; an entry nook behind a sliding door holds cabinets, hooks and a seat. Every leftover corner is assigned a purpose.

The bathroom continues the theme with brick-pattern tiles, a wall-hung basin and a rain shower under a skylight. The tile echoes the exterior plinth at a smaller scale, and the overhead daylight keeps a tight room from feeling enclosed.

A Garden Edge on a Tight Plot

Sliding glazed doors at the rear open onto a lawn, a planted border and a small tree, bounded by a slatted timber fence. The patterned brick turns the corner here too. For a house on what was once garage hardstanding, a real garden is a quiet but meaningful gain, both for the occupants and for the street, which trades tarmac for planting.

Plans and Drawings

The plans confirm how economical the layout is. The ground floor holds an open living and kitchen space, the stair, a small toilet and the bay. Upstairs, two bedrooms and a bathroom sit beneath the roof lines. The roof plan shows the hip with two skylights and a smaller gabled projection, and the section makes clear how the pitched upper room gains height where it is needed.

Why This Project Matters

London is full of garage courts, side plots and backland scraps that could each hold a home. Wade House shows how to build on them without provoking the street. By working with the grammar of the surrounding semis rather than against it, Wadhal makes a strong case that contextual design and contemporary craft are not opposites.

It also shows that 70 square metres can be a complete house rather than a compromise. The gains come from decisions you can learn from: a mobile island, storage built into circulation, a bay window treated as a room, and a roof structure left visible to give the upper floor its character. Small infill will matter more in the coming years, and this is a useful precedent for doing it well.

Wade House by Wadhal, Ruislip, United Kingdom. Area: 70 m². Completed 2025. Photography by Lorenzo Zandri and Francesca Petrysczak.

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